7 ms·

Here's how much games of old would cost now, considering inflation: Atari 2600 (1980, ~$25) - ~$77.79 NES (1986, $29.99-$49.99) - $70.16-$116.94 SNES (1991,

Here's how much games of old would cost now, considering inflation: Atari 2600 (1980, ~$25) - ~$77.79 NES (1986, $29.99-$49.99) - $70.16-$116.94 SNES (1991, $49.99-$59.99) - $94.11-$112.93 N64 (1996, $49.99) - $81.69 PS2 (2000, $49.99) - $74.43 Xbox 360 (2005, $59.99) - $78.76 So if anything, big-budget games have never been cheaper than they are now despite newer games requiring huge development budgets compared to classic titles. And there are way more "indie" games being released now in the $5-$30 range than ever before, many of astounding quality. But even more importantly, the AAA game industry is moving away from charging a fixed price for big-budget games anyway. They would rather give you the game for free and get you into their ecosystem to buy season passes and cosmetic items. It's more profitable for them in the long term. In a world of Humble Bundles and free-to-play games, no one has time to play even a tiny fraction of what is being released. There has never been more entertainment available for essentially no cost. The world has a lot of problems, but the high price of video games is not one of them.

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
Does this account for lootboxes, or just base game price? Inflation comparison of the game's base price isn't the full story, but is also difficult to quantify as some players will spend $0 on in-game purchases, while others spend hundreds.
dx87 6y ago
Yeah, I don't get it when people are saying games are too expensive. I remember buying $50 NES games in the early 90s, and they didn't get updates and bugfixes, and unless it was a game made by a well known studio, there were no reviews to make an informed decision. Compared to almost every hobby, video games are a bargain when you consider that you can regularly get hundreds of hours of entertainment in a AAA title.
- Loudergood 6y ago
  They also shipped well tested back then compared to now.
  - bogwog 6y ago
    They were also much simpler and smaller back then compared to now
- goalieca 6y ago
  >Yeah, I don't get it when people are saying games are too expensive. This is because of the anchoring principle. We get used to a number and everything becomes relative (anchored) around that number. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(cognitive_bias) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(cognitive_bias)
sxp 6y ago
Thanks for doing the math. This article is complete clickbait bullshit. Performing a histortical price comparison without accounting for inflation or some other price index will result in nonsensical results.
- Hackbraten 6y ago
  But the article does account for inflation? > Adjusted for inflation, a $60 “Call of Duty” title in 2005 would be about $78 today, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.
harry8 6y ago
Ok now do it again as a per hour of enjoyable gameplay. I can't remember a game lately that anyone paid for /once/ and got as many hours of enjoyment out of as Super Mario, Sonic, Half Life etc. CoD MW2 vs Half Life 2? There's an order of magnitude difference if not 2. Also the price nowadays is the price of the first 3 chapters and you have to pay plenty more to get the full game, that's still kinda short. Then the fifa/2k games, that's an anuual subscription and not the price of a game so that comparison from yesteryear sucks. They really aren't better games this year to last and haven't been for a decade or more. Pricing alone is only a part of this story. There's more to it that cannot be ignored if you want to make meaningful comparisons over time. Taking pricing alone we would still expect the price to come down over time as the marginal cost of production of an extra unit of a game is approaching $zero and the market is vastly bigger now than 20 years ago. So maybe total revenue is a better thing to compare in 2020 dollars? The good news is that if you stay a generation or two behind you get the good stuff, the hype bubble surrounding titles has dissapaited and it's a lot cheaper. The water-cooler aspect might be impaired for you but ymmv.
- cameldrv 6y ago
  Yeah but there's a red queen problem with games. Better GPUs come out that enable more capabilities mean more work to fully take advantage of them. Those that do are more likely to sell a lot of games. Producing a AAA game is about two orders of magnitude more expensive than thirty years ago -- compare Super Mario 3 at $800k with GTA V at $130m.
  - harry8 6y ago
    Totally. Super Mario 3 is a lot more fun to play and cleverly executed. It's not even close.
- moritonal 6y ago
  Your math around pricing is wrong, it's not about how much it cost to make, it's about how much you'll pay to play it. Some people are willing to pay for quite little. AAA games are more like AAA movies. But just like film, I find myself enjoying good TV more, which explains why I play smaller more procedural (ha, play on words) games.
mumbisChungo 6y ago
I bought the original Street Fighter II the month it came out for SNES for $99 CAD (which at the time was ~$83 USD).
kyriakos 6y ago
In all the previous generations the games were paid once off though. No DLC no loot boxes, no microtransactions. The price was final. Now you pay 60 and end up paying another 60 to fully enjoy the game.

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago

Does this account for lootboxes, or just base game price? Inflation comparison of the game's base price isn't the full story, but is also difficult to quantify as some players will spend $0 on in-game purchases, while others spend hundreds.

dx87 6y ago

Yeah, I don't get it when people are saying games are too expensive. I remember buying $50 NES games in the early 90s, and they didn't get updates and bugfixes, and unless it was a game made by a well known studio, there were no reviews to make an informed decision. Compared to almost every hobby, video games are a bargain when you consider that you can regularly get hundreds of hours of entertainment in a AAA title.

Loudergood 6y ago
They also shipped well tested back then compared to now.
- bogwog 6y ago
  They were also much simpler and smaller back then compared to now
goalieca 6y ago
>Yeah, I don't get it when people are saying games are too expensive. This is because of the anchoring principle. We get used to a number and everything becomes relative (anchored) around that number. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(cognitive_bias) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(cognitive_bias)

sxp 6y ago

Thanks for doing the math. This article is complete clickbait bullshit. Performing a histortical price comparison without accounting for inflation or some other price index will result in nonsensical results.

Hackbraten 6y ago
But the article does account for inflation? > Adjusted for inflation, a $60 “Call of Duty” title in 2005 would be about $78 today, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.

harry8 6y ago

Ok now do it again as a per hour of enjoyable gameplay. I can't remember a game lately that anyone paid for /once/ and got as many hours of enjoyment out of as Super Mario, Sonic, Half Life etc. CoD MW2 vs Half Life 2? There's an order of magnitude difference if not 2. Also the price nowadays is the price of the first 3 chapters and you have to pay plenty more to get the full game, that's still kinda short. Then the fifa/2k games, that's an anuual subscription and not the price of a game so that comparison from yesteryear sucks. They really aren't better games this year to last and haven't been for a decade or more. Pricing alone is only a part of this story. There's more to it that cannot be ignored if you want to make meaningful comparisons over time. Taking pricing alone we would still expect the price to come down over time as the marginal cost of production of an extra unit of a game is approaching $zero and the market is vastly bigger now than 20 years ago. So maybe total revenue is a better thing to compare in 2020 dollars? The good news is that if you stay a generation or two behind you get the good stuff, the hype bubble surrounding titles has dissapaited and it's a lot cheaper. The water-cooler aspect might be impaired for you but ymmv.

cameldrv 6y ago
Yeah but there's a red queen problem with games. Better GPUs come out that enable more capabilities mean more work to fully take advantage of them. Those that do are more likely to sell a lot of games. Producing a AAA game is about two orders of magnitude more expensive than thirty years ago -- compare Super Mario 3 at $800k with GTA V at $130m.
- harry8 6y ago
  Totally. Super Mario 3 is a lot more fun to play and cleverly executed. It's not even close.
moritonal 6y ago
Your math around pricing is wrong, it's not about how much it cost to make, it's about how much you'll pay to play it. Some people are willing to pay for quite little. AAA games are more like AAA movies. But just like film, I find myself enjoying good TV more, which explains why I play smaller more procedural (ha, play on words) games.

mumbisChungo 6y ago

I bought the original Street Fighter II the month it came out for SNES for $99 CAD (which at the time was ~$83 USD).

kyriakos 6y ago

In all the previous generations the games were paid once off though. No DLC no loot boxes, no microtransactions. The price was final. Now you pay 60 and end up paying another 60 to fully enjoy the game.